cum grano salis
cum grano salis adverb: with a grain of salt; with a bit of common sense and skepticism.
Adverb
cum grano salis (not comparable)
- With a grain of salt; with a bit of common sense and skepticism.
- This observation, taken cum grano salis, applies more or less to all who are daily exposed to the temptations of a superfluous table.1817, “Observations on Ill Health, Arising from Indigestion”, in The Gentleman's magazine, Volume 87, Part 1, p420
- The claim of Dr. Hodge that our standards sustain the view which he advocates, must be taken cum grano salis.1861 "Imputation," The Danville quarterly review, Volume 3 (September, 1861), Richard H. Collins, p403
Origin of cum grano salis
A New Latin coinage, derived from the phrase cum grānō salis (which was not used in Classical Latin).
Questions about cum grano salis
- What does cum grano salis mean?
- Cum grano salis means with a grain of salt; with a bit of common sense and skepticism.
- What part of speech is cum grano salis?
- Cum grano salis is an adverb.
Words near cum grano salis in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cum grano salis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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